It is believed that Wagner recruited Irene Leidolf, Maria Gruber and Stephanija Meyer to murder patients who were under their care. Wagner was the first of the group to murder a patient in 1983, at the age of 23. The women would cause the patients to die of an overdose of morphine, insulin, Rohypnol or would drown them.

Wagner taught each of the women how to commit murder and would assist the others every time a patient was drowned. It is thought that at first Wagner believed that she would murder her victims to ease their pain, but this changed over time and the women would murder a victim annoyed them. Every victim was left at the scene of the crime and no one found the deaths to be suspicious.

In 1989, Wagner and her accomplices were drinking at a local pub when they began to discuss the murders that they had committed. A doctor who was sitting at a nearby table overheard them and went to the police. All of the women were arrested 6 weeks later. Wagner was found guilty of murdering 15 people, attempting to murder 17 people and assaulting 2 others. She was sentenced to life in prison. Leidolf was found guilty of 5 murders and the other two women were found guilty of manslaughter and attempted murder charges. They are all believed to have murdered between 48 and 200 people while working in hospitals.

In 2008, Wagner was released on conditional parole. She was also given a new identity.

Blog Posts

Waltraud Wagner was found guilty of murdering fifteen people, seventeen attempted murders and two counts of assault. Wagner and her accomplices Stephanija Meyer, Maria Gruber and Irene Leidolf are thought to have murdered between forty-eight and two-hundred people. We do not currently have information on any of her victims.